Max Lerner has combined journalism and teaching for nearly five decades. While he calls himself a newspaperman, Lerner has been recognized throughout his career as a member of America's intellectual elite. His column is still syndicated by the Los Angeles Times, and he continues to teach classes at the United States International University in San Diego. Lerner describes himself as a "working thinker," as a teacher in the public arena. "I'm trying to bridge gaps," Lerner says, "to relate the two worlds of journalism and academics. If you're going to write for the papers as a columnist, instead of just retell Washington gossip, ... you ought to be pretty fundamentally based in the social and human sciences. For that reason I think my academic work is critical to my journalistic writing. On the other hand, I also feel as an academic that I don't want to write just for...